E&P

Rice Energy Inc. turned 10 gross (9.1 net) wells targeting the Marcellus Shale, as well as its first in the Utica, into production during the second quarter of 2014, all of which helped boost the company’s production by 84% as it simultaneously tacked on acreage in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Year-over-year production was flat for Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. in the second quarter as it continued transitioning to an Appalachian pure-play, making progress on its first Utica Shale well in West Virginia and blocking up its acreage position with acquisitions in the basin.

Even with some robust quarter-over-quarter production growth, particularly in crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL), Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp.’s oil/natural gas operations continued to operate in the red, reporting small losses Wednesday for both the 2Q2014 and first half of the year.

Leaders in Washington, DC, and state governors across the country should take note of how western states are meshing environmental goals with growing oil and gas development, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said last Wednesday. If they did, some of the big issues at hand might be solved more successfully, he told an audience in Denver at the Colorado Oil & Gas Association’s Rocky Mountain Energy Summit.

Despite a more measured approach in the Utica Shale during the second quarter that kept production flat, Gulfport Energy Corp. said Thursday the changes it’s made in Ohio have the company poised for big gains in the coming months and maximum results in the years ahead.

As state officials in Colorado withdrew their legal actions regarding local government efforts to regulate oil and natural gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a state district judge gave the industry a belated, if unneeded, legal victory on Thursday.

Pure-play Antero Resources Corp. continues to churn out record natural gas production, surpassing 1 Bcfe/d in July, but its focus has increasingly shifted to building a processing and midstream portfolio to handle those volumes and generate more value.

Permian Basin crude oil pricing increasingly is impacted as bottlenecks develop, but Concho Resources Inc. isn’t waiting around for someone else to expand the midstream systems, CEO Tim Leach said on Thursday.

Goodrich Petroleum Corp. and its peers have had some recent disappointments in the emerging Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) of Louisiana and Mississippi. Goodrich shares are off about 35% since mid-June, but CEO Gil Goodrich remains a TMS believer and said the industry’s understanding of the play is advancing rapidly, if a bit unevenly.